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<title>16.14 nis -- Interface to Sun's NIS (Yellow Pages)</title>
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<h1><a name="SECTION00181400000000000000000">
16.14 <tt class="module">nis</tt> --
         Interface to Sun's NIS (Yellow Pages)</a>
</h1>

<p>
<a name="module-nis"></a>  
<p class="availability">Availability: <span
 class="platform">UNIX</span>.</p>

<p>
The <tt class="module">nis</tt> module gives a thin wrapper around the NIS library, useful
for central administration of several hosts.

<p>
Because NIS exists only on <span class="Unix">Unix</span> systems, this module is
only available for <span class="Unix">Unix</span>.

<p>
The <tt class="module">nis</tt> module defines the following functions:

<p>
<dl><dt><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr valign="baseline">
  <td><nobr><b><tt id='l2h-3612' xml:id='l2h-3612' class="function">match</tt></b>(</nobr></td>
  <td><var>key, mapname[, domain=default_domain]</var>)</td></tr></table></dt>
<dd>
Return the match for <var>key</var> in map <var>mapname</var>, or raise an
error (<tt class="exception">nis.error</tt>) if there is none.
Both should be strings, <var>key</var> is 8-bit clean.
Return value is an arbitrary array of bytes (may contain <code>NULL</code>
and other joys).

<p>
Note that <var>mapname</var> is first checked if it is an alias to another
name.

<p>

<span class="versionnote">Changed in version 2.5:
The <var>domain</var> argument allows to override
the NIS domain used for the lookup. If unspecified, lookup is in the
default NIS domain.</span>

</dl>

<p>
<dl><dt><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr valign="baseline">
  <td><nobr><b><tt id='l2h-3613' xml:id='l2h-3613' class="function">cat</tt></b>(</nobr></td>
  <td><var>mapname[, domain=default_domain]</var>)</td></tr></table></dt>
<dd>
Return a dictionary mapping <var>key</var> to <var>value</var> such that
<code>match(<var>key</var>, <var>mapname</var>)==<var>value</var></code>.
Note that both keys and values of the dictionary are arbitrary
arrays of bytes.

<p>
Note that <var>mapname</var> is first checked if it is an alias to another
name.

<p>

<span class="versionnote">Changed in version 2.5:
The <var>domain</var> argument allows to override
the NIS domain used for the lookup. If unspecified, lookup is in the
default NIS domain.</span>

</dl>

<p>
<dl><dt><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr valign="baseline">
  <td><nobr><b><tt id='l2h-3614' xml:id='l2h-3614' class="function">maps</tt></b>(</nobr></td>
  <td><var>[domain=default_domain]</var>)</td></tr></table></dt>
<dd>
Return a list of all valid maps.

<p>

<span class="versionnote">Changed in version 2.5:
The <var>domain</var> argument allows to override
the NIS domain used for the lookup. If unspecified, lookup is in the
default NIS domain.</span>

</dl>

<p>
<dl><dt><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr valign="baseline">
  <td><nobr><b><tt id='l2h-3615' xml:id='l2h-3615' class="function">get_default_domain</tt></b>(</nobr></td>
  <td><var></var>)</td></tr></table></dt>
<dd>
Return the system default NIS domain. 
<span class="versionnote">New in version 2.5.</span>

</dl>

<p>
The <tt class="module">nis</tt> module defines the following exception:

<p>
<dl><dt><b><span class="typelabel">exception</span>&nbsp;<tt id='l2h-3616' xml:id='l2h-3616' class="exception">error</tt></b></dt>
<dd>
An error raised when a NIS function returns an error code.
</dd></dl>

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<span class="release-info">Release 2.5.1, documentation updated on 18th April, 2007.</span>
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